So Which Is It Going To Be?

Updated on March 30, 2013

There are times when you have to look back. The study of history should be a gradual learning experience so that the big slam dunk doesn't happen all at once. We can tell ourselves that everything is going to be alright and that it "could never happen in the United States of America." But those of us who have lived at least 5 or 6 decades can attest to the fact that it can happen in our country, in fact it has and it doesn't appear to be getting much better.

I used the first graphic on the right to illustrate a point and the video that follows is powerful but sometimes power is found in stark reality. My point of reference in all of this is the giant strides we, the American people, have made just in the decades since I was born. The Democrats didn't do all those things nor did the Republicans. It was We, the people who always pulled together and always should. But sadly I look around and see that isn't happening anymore. Sadly our country has lost its position in the world. We've become like everybody else? Ask yourself why after you watch the video and not before.

Listen To What The Man Says, Not How He Says It...

Did you notice that the video is viral with over 6 million hits and counting? We have another approximately 304 million citizens who need to watch what that man had to say because he is right. Now my question is to those who care, and some who read this don't nor will they, is what kind of a nation are we leaving to our children and how did we get off a proven path and the one we are now on? He laid it out for you with some of the stats on where this nation ranks among the world of nations. Is that good enough?

I didn't like what he said myself but sometimes I'm not fond of the truth as it slaps me around. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, flowery and sugar coated. The greatness of this nation in the past wasn't about two political parties seeing which one could rape and pillage the tax payer the most so they could beat their chicken chests and tell us how great they were. It wasn't about expanding a federal bureaucracy intent on seeing how much of the tax payer pie it could garner and waste.

Pay attention to some of the things going on around you and start to question them. What is going on when tax payer money is being given away, yes away in grants, to study overweight lesbians, drunken lesbians, duck penis plasticity and the latest is snail sex.

Since when has it been okay for two adolescents to vacation in Atlantis on our money when the nation's children are being deprived of tours of The People's House because we supposedly can't afford it? And our federal government isn't out of control with our money? Good grief! How anyone can defend this sort of thing amazes me. But sadly they do.

Me? I want my country back from the self-serving career pickpockets that we call career politicians. Watch them like you're the mouse with the hawk circling above you. They're so busy trying to figure out how to "one up each other" to hang onto the power they so covet that "We, the People..." have taken a back seat as our nation gets driven into an economic abyss.

At what point was it that you can remember that "We, the People..." became "They, Themselves..."? Or is that all you have ever really known? That, my fellow Americans, has been going on for more than a couple of decades now. We need to look back and bring the things back that once made this nation the greatest nation on earth. The man in the video laid it out clearly.

"The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one." Yes Houston, we do have a problem. And we have the chest beaters in Washington DC who made a complete mess of governing this nation pounding their chicken chests and telling us there isn't any problem.

According to them the problem is the other political party. If you believe that then I have to tell you I think you are one stupid person and have no business voting - EVER.. The other part of problem solving is this. Are you going to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

So Which Is It Going To Be? I don't want you to act like a Republican or a Democrat. Try acting like an American! Do for yourself and don't rely on some Nanny State to do it for you. The United States of America has never been like that. But apparently surveying the political landscape, they have you just about where they want you.

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Comments 26 comments

My friend you have out done yourself this time. The video should go to every citizen in this country. If that doesn't rock you back on your heels you may be beyond help or a liberal. What a statement of reality. Thanks for posting this.

Old Poolman 3 years ago from Rural Arizona

Jim, I had to give this hub every rating except funny, because it isn't funny. I have lived here for 7 1/2 decades, and have seen the very best this country has to offer.

I have also seen this slipping away little by little allowing us to become what we are today. This video should be required viewing for everyone calling themselves an American.

Sadly, we the American people have allowed this to happen. Ignorance and apathy being the two main culprits. We have turned the running of our country over to a bunch of professional thieves who care only about how much they can steal while in office. In the process, they make many of their friends and family wealthy at the same time.

We now have an administration who is determined to further divide the people of this country and encourage them to fight among themselves rather than paying attention to what is going on in Washington.

It is not their fault, but many of the younger generation who never experienced America at her best have no idea what has been lost. We rarely miss anything until we no longer have it, and they have never had it. We have turned this country into a society who now views government as their nanny, giving them token gifts but little leadership, and they ask for yet more gifts.

Results speak volumes about business's and governments. When we look at our rapidly declining position in this world, we are failing miserably. The CEO of any major corporation with declining results such as these would have been fired long ago, yet we tolerate it.

We continue to reelect politicians who block progress and take us in the wrong direction. We ignore the huge amount of government waste and corruption with little or no complaint. Is it any wonder our elected representatives feel they are free to do most anything they want to do? It is up to us to stop this and change their thinking.

The Frog Prince 3 years ago from Arlington, TX Author

Mike - What amazes me is that poll after poll after poll indicates the majority of Americans feel this nation is heading in the wrong direction. And so????

The Frog

Old Poolman 3 years ago from Rural Arizona

Jim, as long as government plays the role of nanny and free stuff keeps flowing, nothing will change.

The Frog Prince 3 years ago from Arlington, TX Author

Mike - Oh it will change and drastically when the money runs out!

Old Poolman 3 years ago from Rural Arizona

How can the money run out when we just print more when we need it?

The Frog Prince 3 years ago from Arlington, TX Author

What backs the money? Debt? Who holds the debt? I'm sure I don't have to spell any of this pout to you Mike. Rhetorical questions are just that. when the bank says NO MORE that will be it.

The Frog

drbj 3 years ago from south Florida

That video, Jim, is the voice of reason for our country that is now being run by power-mad, misguided megalomaniacs intent on turning entrepreneurial America into a socialistic state.

Last night I listened to Dr. Ben Carson on Fox News and he is worth listening to - a genuine voice of reason with intelligence and empathy. He declared he is an Independent - God help him to choose to run for Prez in 2016.

Stu 3 years ago

Hi Frog,

It's obvious the 100+ year experiment in progressivism has failed.

Checks and balances in our Constitution have been almost completely gutted. Federalism (vertical separation of powers), republicanism (horizontal separation of powers), the Senate's Advice and Consent role, and the House's supremacy over federal spending are almost like relics of a bygone day. Our last chack and balance, citizen arms, is now under relentless attack.

By destroying checks and balances, and assigning non-constructionist meanings to the General Welfare and Commerce clauses, virtually all State powers and Constitutional rights of the People have been usurped and denied, respectively. We now have tyranny by both dictatorship (radically excessive federal power) and anarchy (branches of federal government stealing power from each other). The incomprehensible growth of federal government in terms of power has brought with it the need to enforce those powers, leading to public debt we can never pay off in sound dollars, and over-printing of money that will destory the dollar and our savings once the liquidity trap ends (borrowing demand returns to normal) and interest rates skyrocket. Unlike the States, the government can print money and borrow into oblivion, leading to excess law and regulation that is capricious, tyrannical, and impossible to enforce without spending orders of magnitude more than we can afford.

In truth, the explanation for our problems is that progressives have turned the Constitution on its head. "Ordered liberty," as defined by the Founders, meant free markets and deep government respect for private property rights, combined with sufficient State controls to prevent social decay. Instead, we now have central economic planning and an "anything goes" social policy that completely ignores latent (future) harm from social actions people execute today.

Our Constitution limits the federal government to about a dozen enumerated powers, all of which bear a material connection to international matters. The only reason federal government can control matters that were intended by the Constitution to be managed by the States is because the overwhelming panoply of stolen powers does not overwhelm Congress. The evil, insidious, and patently unconstitutional Administrative Procedures Act (APA) grants the federal Executive branch to "make law" by regulation. This is not only a violation of representative government (almost all Executive officials are unelected), but it violates the Tenth Amendment, because Article 1 of the Constitution (the powers delegated to Congress) does not grant Congress the power to "share" its law-making function with the Administration (i.e., the APA is a violation of both enumerated powers and separation of powers). Were the APA successfully repealed, or vacated in the federal court system, ALL Executive branch regulation would be null and void, even that pursuant to federally enumerated powers. This would encourage Congress to only pass laws pursuant to federally enumerated powers, because they don't have the required number of people (i.e., millions), with the right mix of technical skill sets, to promulgate the highly detailed federally ultra-vires (outside of legal jurisdiction) "laws" that are now created by regulation (commerce, education, energy, firearms, agriculture, communication, health, drugs, environment, etc.). Almost all Congressional law that falls outside of enumerated powers is somewhat general in nature, and depends on detailed follow-up regulation by technical experts (Administration regulators) to achieve the intended goals of Congress. Take away the regulators, and the federal Congress would see very quickly that the areas of law they actually do have jurisdiction over (Article 1, Section 8 federal powers) is more than enough to keep them busy.

Sadly, I can't be optimistic. "But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." (John Adams). I have yet to see a counterexample to this principle, short of outright revolt or warfare to restore liberty taken by a domestic tyrant or foreign conqueror. After seeing what Obama did in his first four years, how could 50% of Americans still support him in 2012? At the end of the day, a representative form of government reflects, to a large extent, the attributes of the People. We as a People have grown greedy, selfish, lacking in knowledge, and foolish enough to believe that an all-powerful central government will act in our, not their, best interests. As the Bard of Avon warned us, don't look to the stars to find where the fault lies.

Stu

FitnezzJim 3 years ago from Fredericksburg, Virginia

That first video is powerful, but I fear it is powerful only to those who experienced these past three or four decades of our countries change. We grew up believing our country was the greatest, and have seen that (statistically speaking) change, to what the man indicates in the video. But we also have significant positive qualities, those mentioned by the other speakers in the video (diversity, opportunity, and freedom) that set us up well for becoming once again the greatest in the world.

You may have missed an opportunity here, simply because you followed up that first emphatic message with a video message of hopeful reminiscence. That video with the words ‘I want us to be like we were’ is a message of passivity, and it is a message easily misinterpreted. It does not lay out the challenge we face if we want to return to a country of greatness. And, many may think back to the past decades as a time of oppression rather than opportunity, and think that the singer is calling once again for those times. Let us hope that we do not return to societal oppression of our past, instead, let us hope that we carry forward the positive changes of the past few decades into our future.

If you want a message to become clear, you need to keep saying it, over and over and over.

That said, the message about the challenges we face is in many other videos. These are messages predominately on growth, world population growth, world technology growth, world education growth. They are messages of where we stand with respect to the expected sizes and expected growths of other countries. There are messages about technology, and how our technological advantages are expected to erode as other countries are discovering the benefits of educating their people and furthering the societal freedoms in which these technological advances can occur. There are messages of resources, land and energy, where the resource reserves we hold and use, per capita, are much greater than those of others in the world. Collectively, they are messages that ‘we are in a changing world’. We should hear these messages and use them to define what we should look forward to, rather than looking back to what once was. The ultimate message is that home-world Earth will eventually be incapable of supporting its’ people. What then?

If we truly want to once again be the greatest country in the world, then we have to recognize the setting of our future, take advantage of the positive qualities we have as a nation, take advantage of the positive changes that have occurred, and use those positives to work towards a viable future. We have to adapt to the changes that we know will occur. Looking back won’t get us there.

MaryInMinnesota 3 years ago

You asked how we got off the path... we did so with technology and the lack of religion in the past few generations. If one has a conscience, then one has a soul. If one has a soul, they more than likely have a belief in God & Jesus. If one believes in God & Jesus, then they more than likely has morals. With out morals, we are all doomed. This girl believes in God & Jesus with all of her being, and her heart belongs to heaven and our Two Lords. May every one remember that Easter is about Jesus, and not marshmellow chicks. God Bless you Jim, and all who believe!

The Frog Prince 3 years ago from Arlington, TX Author

FitnezzJim - Looking back and bringing forward those qualities is what needs to be done. It's not necessary to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is a good wheel. The traits that we were taught aren't being taught anymore and they need to be brought out and have the dust knocked off of them. Things like responsibility for yourself and your family, lending a hand rather than putting your hand out expecting someone else to fill it for you, and the list goes on.

Though that was a small segment of a television series the man laid it out fairly well about the self-determination and responsibility that were a part of the social fabric of past generations.

I can go on but will save it for later. Happy Easter to you and yours.

The Frog

justateacher 3 years ago from Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Near Oz...

As a teacher I see the direction our country is going in and I fear it - I see children and parents who have become an entitled group of people - they feel that they shouldn't have to work for anything they should get everything handed to them - parents want their kids to have the best of everything but they don't want their kids to have to work a day in their life to get it - and it's these people who are voting for our government - a government that continues to promise handing out money and other entitlements to those who refuse to work for it - as that happens, our country goes down the tubes - only when people believe that they must work to make this country great again will it become great again...

Love this - voted up and across - except funny...

The Frog Prince 3 years ago from Arlington, TX Author

justateacher - Good to hear it from a teacher's perspective. You see it through a different lenses than most of us do.

The Frog

sholland10 3 years ago from Southwest Missouri

HI Frog! You have brought to light what so many people ignore. It seems that the individual is more important than the Country right now. So many are apathetic and just glide through life without thinking about how others are affected. We need to get back to being Americans. I didn't like what he had to say in the video, either, but the truth sometimes hurts. His ending points are correct, we do not vote for the morals needed to keep us a cohesive country. The people we put in office are not in it for the interest of the Country. They have their own agendas and want their pockets padded. I hope we can get back on track. It is sad that the media takes sides, and it is also sad that many get their "news" from the biased late night show hosts like Letterman and from the hypocritical Hollywood elite. Idealism is taking over and reality is being thrown out.

I am so worried about our future and what is being done to our kids because of knee-jerk reactions. I wrote a hub about the ridiculous elementary school rules for grounds of suspension. We are ruining our kids, their future, and our future.

Thanks for the wake up call! Votes and shares!

The Frog Prince 3 years ago from Arlington, TX Author

Thanks for weighing in Susan. Something I learned long ago as we came out of the late 60's and early 70's - Idealism doesn't pay the bills nor provide for my family. I have to do that.

The frog

poetvix 3 years ago from Gone from Texas but still in the south. Surrounded by God's country.

The video was one of the most succinct descriptions of truth I have ever seen. We are in trouble and we are divided as never before. Those in power benefit from that division and throw tons of our own money behind keeping it stirred up on new and creative fronts daily. This is one of your better ones, Sir Frog, and that's saying something. Happy Easter and God bless America.

Angela Blair 3 years ago from Central Texas

Excellent, straightforward Hub -- and the video spoke for many Americans -- thinking Americans. If we all don't wake up soon and put a "whoa" on what's happening in this country right now we'll be left with the mournful message of "I Want My Country Back." Best/Sis

Kasman 3 years ago from Bartlett, Tennessee

I could care less about republican versus democrat. We have traded personal responsibility for comfort, morality for immorality, and truth for elitist enlightenment. Good hub, it should make us stand up and consider our thoughts on each subject facing us today! Time to get back to founding principles! Good job!

Pamela99 3 years ago from United States

This hub is absolutely over the top. That video was mind numbing as I knew what he said was so true. I want the country back that I remember from my youth. We have been heading in the wrong direction for a long time. This hub is rated across the board (except funny) and shared.

Tom Schumacher 3 years ago from Huntington Beach, CA

Divisive actions solve nothing. As you stated, we need our elected officials to "try acting like an American!" Voted up.

Becky Katz 3 years ago from Hereford, AZ

This video hit me hard when a friend sent it to me. I sent it out to anyone that I thought would do something with it. Thank you for putting this message out for us all to think about. We need to take our country back and turn it back into the United States that I love.

Not the one where the government is taking everything away from us, so they can give it to the terrorists who are trying to demolish us. Not the one that is studying stupid things that do not matter and that only a very few care about. The one that does things and is great and cohesive. The one that helps people who need help, not the ones that are too lazy to help themselves. Put them to work and help the crippled, the disabled and the oppressed.

Ghost32 3 years ago

Frog: Well done, Jim. BOTH videos (especially in combination) are worth experiencing, and thanks to Becky for passing that first one on. Much apppreciation to you both.

Voted Up and, like Mike said, Everything But Funny.

breakfastpop 3 years ago

Thanks for this fabulous hub. We have lost our way and it has been happening for a very long time. Somehow, thanks to Obama and a non-productive Congress, our country is coming apart at the seams. I can see why. First you have the fanatics who are just happy to see a black man in the WH without a thought to his policies and beliefs. Then we have a mass of people content to take whatever they can get for free and a government thrilled to make them grateful and compliant. Then we have a whole bunch of people who actually can think, but choose not to think about "Politics." They just don't get that "Politics" is creeping its way into the fabric of their lives. One day, and it should have happened already, they will wonder what happened to their country. Then there is "us" and we are beating the drum and practicing the very principles that made our country great in the first place. I just don't want to be preaching to a very small choir. The idiots I write to in Congress, don't even bother to answer anymore. One of them might be dead and the other is probably going to jail. What a world! Voted up and everything except beautiful or funny.

Gypsy Rose Lee 3 years ago from Riga, Latvia

I left the US for specific reasons one of them being that my mom wanted to return to her homeland and as it was three years later she died. However I have always longed to return to my homeland the US and it breaks my heart to see what's going on. Sure choked up on that video. Being so far away at this point I can say that I sure hope there is something good to return to. Always on the side of the people and how the US was and should be again. Passing this on.

Wayne Brown 3 years ago from Texas

Those in Washington today would have you believe that they are the only people smart enough to run this nation. They make it as complex and complicated as possible so that the average citizen will run from it. The government did not complicate itself...human beings did it and far too oftern with their own bias or greed in mind as opposed to what works best for the American people. It is theft right in front of our eyes....misuse of taxpayer dollars; absolute bald-face stupidity in the face of enormous debt and deficit...we keep doing the same thing expecting a different result. With such directions the country has a 99.9% chance of total failure and then the commies and the Muslim Brotherhood can run in and try to take the reins from a people who have no sense whatsoever of the courage and backbone it takes to guard what was already ours for two centuries. If that is not blind stupidity...tell me what is? ~WB